A static, and documented, IP address provides a 100% guaranteed way of accessing a device. It assumes some basic networking knowledge, but nothing 2 minutes on Google wouldn't tell you.
If a device is configured for DHCP, and then doesn't find a DHCP server, it will end up with a 169.154.n.n address (fairly useless, but safe). Having a device assign itself a 'valid' IP address just because it couldn't see a DHCP server could cause problems.
In this case 192.168.1.199 seems like a sensible option. 192.168.1.n is probably the most commonly used default subnet. The use of .199 is high enough to avoid most clashes. For a very large majority of small networks it would just work.